liar, liar
by chokecherries
Summary: How long can you make your falsehoods last? (I know how to call a bluff when I see it.) She pretends, sometimes.—laxus/mirajane


**notes: **we might be getting a christmas tree from an actual farm today and i am so _stoked_. **  
><strong>**disclaimer: **disclaimed**  
><strong>**dedication: **to all those people who begged me to write miraxus. _do you see what you've done._  
><strong>notes2:<strong> also, ffnet is doing something funky with the italics, so.

(_x_)

_**liar, liar**_

(_leave everything that is worth a single cent __and just take me instead_)

(_x_)

Mirajane Strauss is, for lack of a better word, perfect.

She's pretty, smart, kind, caring, always willing to help, and one of the most popular girls in Magnolia High. At eighteen, she has her whole life together—packaged and wrapped up with a shiny red bow. She's the role model of girls all throughout the school, the captain of the cheerleading team, the anchor.

Mirajane is friendly with anyone and everyone, the metaphysical glue that holds everyone together when they're falling to pieces. She smiles, laughs, and cheers her fellow students up when they're down. Everyone wants to be Mirajane, because she is an angel in times of turmoil. She helps people find their way in life, when everything seems too dark to go on. She's like a full moon on a starless night, when it's too black and bleak to find your way, she is there to guide you.

She's a good girl—all bright moonlight smiles, encouraging words, graceful air, and caring beauty.

.

.

(x_)_

But the moon is just a mirror—it only reflects light and brightness. It doesn't actually have its own glow, so the moon just pretends.

.

.

(_x_)

Laxus sees her in the hallways, sometimes passes her smiling self on his way to ditch a class, hears her tinkling voice leaking through a cracked door, but he never speaks directly _to her. _He's not exactly the most respectable student, despite being the principal's grandson, and if she were to hang around him, it'd surely tarnish her sparkling reputation.

So he watches, sometimes, but he does not engage. He does not respond when she smiles and says hello to him in the halls, and when she asks him a question in class, he only gives her curt replies. He's always been kind of straight to the point, anyway.

Mirajane is always smiling. Every time he sees her—_every damn time_—there's a smile on her face and light laughter in her voice and he thinks to himself, nobody could ever be this happy. Not like this. Not every hour of every day.

He does his best to keep a fair distance, but she is still in most of his classes, and he can't afford to ditch all of them every day of every week. She sits across from him in Calculus, and a few rows over in AP English, and he starts to notice things about her. Like the way her smiles sometimes never meet her eyes, and that on some days, they're just hollow. Her pretty china blue eyes are not always sparkling, and half the time they look haunted. She's pale and has dizzy spells—"oh, I can be such a ditz, you know?"—and he speculates, ponders, but never speaks.

If anyone else notices, they don't mention it.

She still maintains her good grades, still leads the cheer team, and still makes people smile.

But there is something off, something wrong, and he knows it.

Mirajane looks at him in the hallway one day, and they make eye contact. He thinks she's aware that he has noticed the change, the shift, the whatever it is that's been going on with her.

She smiles, but it's wobbly and instead of happy, she looks like she's about to break down in tears.

He does not smile back.

.

.

(_x_)

His father was a good-for-nothing asshole of a prick who left him when his mother died. So he's kind of a mess, with a dysfunctional family to match, and lives with his grandfather. But he's trying to get his act together, trying to be a better person—because he has friends and family who genuinely care for him, who don't want to see him destroy himself.

He's going to graduate, going to become an engineer or something and make them proud.

One day, he is going to be able to smile at Mirajane because he'll feel like he is finally worthy of her good mornings and hellos.

.

.

(_x_)

It's late—Friday night is so close to being early Saturday morning—and he is walking home. Natsu had invited him over for pizza and horror movie night because, _why not_? It was supposed to be a guys' night, but of course wherever Natsu went, so did Lucy. Gray had been there too, so that meant Juvia had tagged along, and Gajeel and Levy had shown up together because her car had broken down and she'd called him to help. Erza had also been there to "keep the peace" or something just as absurd because everyone knows if you put Natsu and Gray together in a confined space for more than three hours, shit's going down.

He doesn't know why he spends his free time hanging out with a bunch of crazy (well, Lucy is mostly sane) juniors and their Student Council President, but these people are his friends. Before, he wouldn't have given them the time of day, but he has changed now and would probably give his life for one or all of them if the need arose.

Laxus shakes his head and turns up the music on his phone, and is about to turn the corner when a flash of silver catches his eye. He looks—oh, it's not silver, but white—and almost doesn't believe what he sees.

Mirajane Strauss is slumped against a dumpster behind a house, looking like a wasted casualty out of a bad chick flick. Her hair is a mess, her makeup smudged, and her bright sequin dress is far too short. He practically rips off his headphones and jogs over to her because—because she looks like_hell _and she could be hurt. More than hurt.

He grabs her gently by the arms and almost pulls away because the stench of alcohol is so strong. "Mirajane," he shakes her carefully, "Mirajane wake up."

She stirs, slightly, and blinks blearily. Her mascara is basically just runny black streaks down her cheeks and chin by now, and he realizes that at some point while being completely wasted, she's also been crying.

"Mirajane," he says again, and this time she squints up at him.

"L…axus?"

He nods and makes a face at the quarter-full bottle of vodka clutched in her right hand. "Mirajane, what the hell are you doing out here?"

She half groans, a raspy grunting sound and closes her eyes again. "Party."

Never in all his life has he ever heard of _the _Mirajane Strauss attending a party, or consuming a comprising amount of booze, or dressing like this, ever.

So he just responds with, "the hell, Mira? You could get yourself in trouble out here or—or _fuck_, someone could _hurt you_. Are you okay?"

That does it, apparently, because suddenly she just breaks down in his arms right then and there. She clutches at his jacket with her black-painted nails and sobs into his chest. He's shit at comforting people, but he chooses to bring her closer and makes an incredulous face at the graffiti on the dumpster in front of him.

They stay like that for what seems like forever, with her sobbing into him, and his arms wrapped tightly around her shaking frame.

.

.

(_x_)

Her sister is dead, and she blames herself, and her brother has changed drastically, and _did you know? Did you know that she was only fifteen Laxus? Did you know that I wanted to be at a party instead of with her? Did you know that if I was there she would have never been hit by that car? _

_Did you know that I've been quietly destroying myself since day one? _

_That I drink until I can't see straight and make out with strangers who I don't ever remember the next morning because I'm trying to forget, but it's always there. I wake up feeling sick to my stomach and I remember because I _can't _forget and sometimes I just want to scream but I'm afraid of someone hearing me just as much as I want someone to_ _hear me. _

She's buried in guilt and self-inflicted blame, so she's trying to drown herself to the point of no return.

_Oh, _he thinks. _Oh._

This is something familiar to him.

She's been holding everything in for so long, and he knows, the longer you keep everything bottled up inside you, the bigger the implosion is going to be. So when she finally did crack, she was doomed to sink like the Titanic from the start. _  
><em>

Mirajane chokes on her tears and he wonders if maybe he's known this for a while already. So he holds her until she finally asks him to take her home, and he does. He fumbles around for the key hidden under one of the potted rose plants, carries her up the stairs to her room, and tucks her into bed. Before he goes, he leans down and kisses her forehead.

It doesn't matter, he convinces himself, because she probably won't remember in the morning, anyway.

He slips back out the door, and disappears like snow is spring.

Mirajane stares up at her ceiling, mostly sober now, and eventually closes her eyes. She finally gets a peaceful night's rest, something she hasn't had in a long time.

.

.

(_x_)

He is Laxus Dreyar—reputable bad boy turned somewhat respectable human being, and she is Mirajane Strauss, Magnolia's golden girl who has been drowning herself all along.

But she isn't lost yet, and he has taught her how to swim. It's slow and hard at first, but it gets easier after time, and when she smiles at him in the hallways between classes (a real, genuine smile) he returns it.

_fin_

**end notes: **this is terrible i know please don't shoot me.


End file.
